ATTACK ON PARADISE

Poor Suleyman. A comb taken for a weapon, his mother’s pills taken for drugs, one panicked attempt to fight back, one dead cop, and a seven-year jail sentence. Now, fresh out of prison, he only wants one thing: to reunite with his mother and atone for his absence. But as a friend warns him: “This is no longer Paradise, it’s hell.”

Prince Hamza has taken over the Paradise apartment complex, surrounding himself with lackeys, enforcers, and killers, each floor with its own particular flavor of danger. Suleyman barely has time to see his mother before everything explodes: she needs her medicine, the police storm the building in a long-planned raid, and Hamza turns her into leverage.

Forced into sharing the same objective as Yasmine, a rookie policewoman everyone underestimates, Suleyman has to fight his way up Paradise floor by floor. At this point, everyone wants him dead, and every new level brings a new threat, a new visual idea, and a new terrible choice.

Close-quarters action? Check. Class rage and siege-movie tension? Check. Feverish visual flourishes? Absolutely. Bob Colaers’ ATTACK ON PARADISE turns a Belgian tower block into a full-contact descent into hell. Bones crunch, blood pools—this is visceral action at its finest. It is all anchored by co-writer and star Saïd Boumazoughe, whose sincere, guilt-ridden reluctance to engage slowly turns into a reckoning. Suleyman really chose the wrong day to come home. (SONIA DROULHIOLE)